N.S.A. Spied on Brazilian Oil Company, Report Says

RIO DE JANEIRO — The National Security Agency spied on Petrobras, Brazil’s giant national oil company, according to a report here on Sunday night by the Globo television network, in the latest revelation of the agency’s surveillance methods that have raised tension between Brazil and the United States.

Still, details were sparse in the report as to precisely what information the N.S.A. may have obtained from spying on Petrobras, raising questions about what objectives the agency could have in targeting the company, which is controlled by Brazil’s government and ranks among the world’s largest oil producers.

The report, based on documents obtained from Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor, said Petrobras figured among other prominent N.S.A. targets, including Google; the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, a consortium based in Belgium that aims to allow banks around the world to securely exchange financial information; and France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It was the latest in a series of reports here in which Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist living in Rio de Janeiro who is working with Globo, has shed light on N.S.A. activities in Latin America from documents given to him by Mr. Snowden.

In a report last week, Globo revealed that the N.S.A. had spied on the presidents of Brazil and Mexico and their top aides, producing an angry reaction from Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, who held out the possibility of canceling a state visit to Washington in October that was arranged to recognize Brazil’s importance to the United States.

In a statement issued after the Globo report was aired, James R. Clapper, the Obama administration’s director of national intelligence, said that it was no secret that the United States government collected intelligence about financial matters. Mr. Clapper said that doing so was needed to gather insight into the economic policies of other countries.

“What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of — or give intelligence we collect to — U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line,” Mr. Clapper said in the statement.

Petrobras did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the televised report on Sunday night.

Globo acknowledged in its report that it was unclear what information the N.S.A. was seeking by spying on Petrobras, but the television network emphasized that the company controlled vast quantities of data on Brazil’s offshore oil fields. Brazil is planning to auction exploration licenses in October that would allow foreign oil companies to form ventures with Petrobras to explore for oil in deep-sea areas.

Petrobras has symbolized Brazil’s ambition of emerging as a global energy powerhouse after discoveries over the last decade of large offshore oil reserves, but the sprawling company has recently struggled with delays of major oil projects, soaring debt and declining production at some of its older offshore oil fields.

In contrast to some other major oil-producing countries like Mexico and Saudi Arabia, where state-controlled oil companies hold monopolies, Brazil already allows international oil companies to have extensive operations. While Petrobras still wields by far the most influence in Brazil’s oil industry, American, Chinese and European energy companies have been seeking to expand here.